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2014 Aston Martin Vanquish Volante In the Flesh! ThisClose To Test Drive, But… Thinking and writing about Aston Martin makes me kick myself in the tits again today for missing a chance to drive the 2014 Vanquish Volante last month at Road America. Alas, it was late in the day and the Vanquish had been very occupied by the 100 other journalists on hand. There was only one test drive left, and another hack got his paws on it first. Maybe next year.... Is what I have been saying since I saw my first DB7 at a resort in Michigan in 1995. I will get behind the wheel of an Aston Martin.…

Best of Paris 2014 – Citroen Divine DS Concept Updated 10.23.14 The DS premium brand spin-off is a HUGE, huge success -- sales and margins on the line are better than even Citroen could have imagined five years ago. This gorgeous concept hatchback is relatively practical by French concept standards -- it runs a standard THP 1.6-liter turbo engine (with a non-standard 270-horsepower) and a compact four-door hatchback shell. Most logically, this machine would slot in above the DS3 and below the DS5. So will the DS4 be this gorgeous as a production car? Fingers crossed that the nose makes it intact, as well as…

Citroen Divine DS Concept for Paris 2014 Shows Way for 2016 DS4 The DS premium brand spin-off is a HUGE, huge success -- sales and margins on the line are better than even Citroen could have imagined five years ago. This gorgeous concept hatchback is relatively practical by French concept standards -- it runs a standard THP 1.6-liter turbo engine (with a non-standard 270-horsepower) and a compact four-door hatchback shell. Most logically, this machine would slot in above the DS3 and below the DS5. So will the DS4 be this gorgeous as a production car? Fingers crossed that the nose makes it intact, as well as the impressive panel slashes from…

Aston Martin RAPIDE VOLANTE Possible from Newport Convertible Engineering Newport Convertible Engineering almost wrote the entire book on factory hard --> soft-top conversions. Often completed on a one-off basis -- the NCE process has been making almost anything into sunny cabrios for decades. This includes SUVs and various other unlikely candidates, like the $30,000 Tesla Model S Cabriolet conversion shown below. But what many of these fantasy builds do not have is the existing Vanquish Volante drop-top sharing similar bones to the Rapide. This would seem to make the Rapide an amazing candidate for a high-fashion, four-door cabriolet. Something like the Mercedes-Benz Ocean Drive concept. Or, for that…

Design Analysis – 2016 Alfa Romeo DISCO VOLANTE SPYDER By Touring Superleggera + 1952 C52 It takes a master designer to reinterpret a retro model in a desirable, futuristic modern car. The fail count is much larger than the short success list of the New Beetle, Ford GT and perhaps MINI. Fails? Fiat 500, Lamborghini Miura, Ford Thunderbird, Chevrolet HHR, Plymouth Prowler, etc. etc. Among supercars, it is even harder to continue designs from so long ago. Why? The designs were always extra wacky, with limited appeal even in their original iterations. In addition, supercar shoppers are always craving the next hotness. The unattainable, never-before-seen machines that will bring traffic to a halt around you. Therefore, Touring Superleggera struck…